Dumontis

Building Autonomy in Continual Improvement

Sales

When you have been working on improving flow across the value stream, I am sure you have come across a situation where customers seem to order infrequently and erratically. We do our best and level the demand using the principle of heijunka, but still, this increases inventory and lead time. As a supplier, we definitely would love to see customers that order in short and regular intervals with little variability in demand. But we seem to be having a hard time getting our commercial teams and customers on board on our Lean journey…

How strange things are on “the other side of the building”. When we, as a customer this time, are trying to improve the flow of purchased parts and materials, we are often confronted with suppliers that are opposing the move towards highly frequent deliveries. And we are having a hard time getting them and our purchase teams along on our Lean journey…

Now isn’t that funny in a sense? We, as a Lean supplier would love to have level demand and deliver frequently. But our suppliers don’t seem to be willing… And we, as a Lean customer, we would love our supplier to deliver more frequently. But our customers don’t seem to be willing… How come that we, in both roles, want these things, but at the same time can’t seem to get our suppliers and customers along?(more…)